You are editing a 50-page thesis. The heading font size changes automatically whenever you modify one heading. You want only the…

Question

You are editing a 50-page thesis. The heading font size changes automatically whenever you modify one heading. You want only the selected heading to change, not all similar headings. What should you do?

1. A. Apply Direct Formatting (Correct answer)
2. B. Use Format Painter
3. C. Modify the Style
4. D. Change the Theme

Correct Answer

Option A — Apply Direct Formatting

Detailed Solution & Explanation

The correct answer is Apply Direct Formatting.

Key Points

• The headings are changing together because they share a style. Editing a style updates every element using it throughout the document — which is the behaviour described.
• To change only the selected heading, apply direct formatting — select that heading and set the font size manually, which overrides the style for that instance alone.
• The alternatives make things worse or do nothing: Modify the Style changes all of them, Change the Theme affects the whole document, and Format Painter merely copies formatting elsewhere.

Additional Information

• The trade-off is worth understanding: styles give consistency and automatic updating, while direct formatting gives local control at the cost of that consistency.
• Styles are what generate an automatic Table of Contents, since Word builds it from Heading 1, 2 and 3 — heavy direct formatting can undermine document structure.
• Ctrl + Spacebar clears direct character formatting and returns text to its underlying style.
• For a variant that should recur, the better practice is to create a new style rather than repeat direct formatting — retaining the benefits of both.